For his most recent trip back to the majors, Brett Baty seems to have brought his bat.

Baty’s home run in the seventh inning Tuesday night was the difference in the Mets’ 2-1 win over the Pirates. It was his fourth homer in five starts since he was called up to absorb some of the playing time created by Jesse Winker’s oblique injury.

His hot streak raises a familiar question, one that will influence Baty’s future and perhaps the Mets’ season: Is it at all real?

To manager Carlos Mendoza, some of the details underlying the recent performance suggest sustainability.

“He’s hitting velo, he’s hitting fastballs,” Mendoza said, rattling off a list that indicated Baty is just about doing it all at the plate. “He’s pulling balls. He’s going oppo with ease. He’s staying back on breaking balls. Even his takes are different, you know? It looks like he’s ready to hit, then shutting it down. For me, that’s a good sign of a good hitter.”

In a way, Baty’s stretch is reminiscent of what Mark Vientos began to do around this time last year: a mid-20s breakout after years of hype and expectation and, upon reaching the majors, a series of false starts.

Don’t forget that Baty, 25, was one of the best handful of high school ballplayers in the country in 2019, when the Mets drafted him in the first round (12th overall). He is one month older than Vientos but had significantly less time in the upper minors before and between his major-league chances.

At minimum, Baty has given the Mets (28-15) reason to investigate further, which they plan to do by virtue of more and more at-bats. With Winker sidelined for at least another month-plus, Baty is set to see pretty regular time at third base (with Vientos shifting to DH) and second base (where he started Tuesday over Luisangel Acuna and Jeff McNeil).

He tries not to think too much about the bigger-picture stuff. Mendoza pointed to confidence as the biggest difference between the current Baty and the old Baty.

“I feel the same. Same guy,” Baty said. “It’s just the game. There’s a lot of highs and lows and you gotta be the same guy every day . . . I’m just going to come in tomorrow and try to put together some good at-bats and hit the ball hard again. So that’s all I’m focused on. I’m focused on tomorrow.”

Mendoza said: “A guy who knows he belongs in the big leagues. He’s just having fun. He’s preparing, he’s going out there, keeping it simple, getting pitches to hit and not overthinking it.”

Baty’s blast was an opposite-field shot that banged off the railing above the wall and rolled back onto the field, briefly confusing him as he reached second base with what he thought might’ve been a double.

It came off righthander Mitch Keller (seven innings, two runs) and broke a tie that the Pirates (14-29) scraped for an inning earlier.

“Driving that ball with ease — I thought it was a line drive, maybe over the leftfielder’s head,” Mendoza said. “And it just kept on going. Pretty impressive. Big-league power right there.”

Baty said: “I hit it really hard, but I thought it was low.”

It helped the Mets make the most of another strong start by righthander Kodai Senga, who in allowing one run in 5 2⁄3 innings actually had his ERA increase to 1.22 (from 1.16).

Senga struck out seven, walked two, allowed six hits and was at his best when it mattered most, holding Pittsburgh to 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. The Pirates finished the game 0-for-13 in that category.

With 102 pitches, Senga totaled triple-digits for the first time since Sept. 20, 2023.

“Obviously, it’s great that I’m healthy and I’m able to get to a triple-digit pitch count,” he said through an interpreter. “But at the same time, it’s not my goal to throw a lot of pitches. I would like to be more efficient. I would like to go deeper into the game with more innings.”

And it helped that he wasn’t the guy who had to pitch to Baty.

“He looks very confident up there,” Senga said. “If he was an opposing hitter, any pitcher would not like to face him at this point.”